“McVane,” said the voice again, from outside.
He leaned out the window, one hand cupped protectively over his head. “What?”
The voice was mechanical, artificial. “The Pistach are not the only race desirous of working with your people. Others are very interested, and others might offer better terms than the Pistach.”
McVane stood very still. He could see no one outside the window, and the voice gave him no hints. It was directionless. “Who are you? Why did you come to me?”
“We are members ofShalaQua, General. It is a … cadre, military, like yourself. We came to you because you were at the meeting. We followed the Pistach to the meeting. You and we may be of great service to one another. To discuss, however, we must arrange to meet.”
“Who . . . who would you like to meet with?”
“The persons with you tonight. The senator. His agents. You. Your agents, if you like.”
“Where? When?”
“Four day from now? Hmm?”
“Monday?”
“If it is called that. At darkspin, you gather others. You go somewhere distant from the city.”
“Darkspin?” McVane whispered from a dry mouth.
“When your world rolls into dark. Evening. Yes. We are still . . . accumulating vocabulary. We apologize. You go into the country, we will follow you, we will meet there. Four days will give you time to prepare, heh?”
“Prepare what?”
“Your safety. The senator, he will want to be safe. So with Prentice Arthur. You less so, but you are a soldier, heh? You can make secure in four days. Some armored vehicle, perhaps. We do not presume to tell you your business.”
“Monday night, at sunset, somewhere in the country,” said McVane.
“Assuredly,” said the voice. “We go now.”
McVane turned away and walked dazedly to the door, shutting off the lights as he opened it, only then remembering his briefcase. It was still on the table and he stumbled toward it in the dark, halted in mid step by a sound from outside. Squadge, squadge, squadge. Flap, flap, flap. Conscious of his dry mouth and throat, he paced silently toward the window, a mouth of darkness, standing back but looking out. Nothing out there. The trees. Not as thick a grove as he had first thought. No more noise. Nothing.
He picked up his briefcase and left as quickly as possible.
Outside the senator’s house, where they had dropped him off, Prentice and Dink sat in the car, at the moment unwilling to move in any direction.
“Did you know he had that rat in his craw about ET’s?” Dink asked. “I thought it was only pregnant women that set him off.”
“If you mean, did I know he’s afraid of little green men, no, or that he believes there’s an extraterrestrial conspiracy, no. I didn’t know either of those things. Maybe he had something bad happen to him when he was a boy. A movie or TV show that scared him.”
“You think?”
Arthur said slowly, “I’d rather think that, wouldn’t you? I mean, we occasionally work in rather . . . arcane ways. We … at least I try to avoid it, but it’s the exigencies of the job. But . . . planning to torture family members just because theymight know something . . . that’s a little far out even for our line of work.”
“He said there’d be people dead or missing. Maybe we’d better put someone on a survey of regional and local news, tabulate any reports of people dead or missing.”
“If you do, he’ll have you by the short hairs. Dink. Think a moment. Aren’t there always people dead or missing?”
“Right. Yeah. I see what you mean.”
“I hope you do, Dink. Oh, yes, I hope you do.”
From Chiddy’s journal
Before we made contact with you, dear Benita, we watched the peoples of Earth for a very long time. It was not necessary for us to learn all the languages, as we have machines to do that, but it was necessary to learn how people think. We watched the Chinese and the Africans, the Indians and Ceylonese. I was particularly interested in the nations where ruling groups had recently come to power through advocacy of specific beliefs, as for example in Afghanistan.